Why Sluggish Sales For Crysis and UT Don't Scare Far Cry 2 Designer Clint Hocking

MTV Multiplayer talked with Far Cry 2's creative director Clint Hocking about making a PC game at a time that high-end first-person shooters aren't selling the way people would expect.

MTV Multiplayer: What's it like making a PC game these days in light of the sales figures for Unreal Tournament III and Crysis?

Clint Hocking: I don't know if you're aware, but we originally planned to make it as a PC game. We really wanted to tell the PC gaming crowd that Far Cry is a PC title and we're not going to screw up the whole brand by making a crappy console game. We want to make a PC title that is worthy of being called Far Cry 2.

[Mikey_Gee]

Maybe because you need a MONSTER MACHINE to even run it half decent. My buds machine is pretty killer and it chuggs at best.

[theox2g7]

crysis will run good if u tweak it, yes i admit it is not the most optimized game out there but they made the game engine and files very moddable so people can play around with settings and see what best suits, u don't have turn every notch down to get the ultimate crysis experience, i mean if u look at the tweaks, turning off some unnecessary things like shadow blur, color grading, cloud rendering gives boosts as high as 10 fps, i mean if u're playing, are u going to notice the clouds or even see the shadow blur or some useless memory leaking rendering? but these effects hack through ur machine because the hardware isn't ready to process all those features at once so why not just tweak it to be playable and still look gorgeous, u can even tweak it to look better than very high and run better than high, look up pydon shader tweak, provides solid framerate on a low end 8600gt setup at 480p and is a mix of high and very high

[Charmers]

Dear god this "sluggish crysis sales" is getting old hat. I do apologise I didn't realise America was actually the WHOLE planet. It is a tradition that PC games do not sell well in the US for various reasons. However it now seems to be "OMGZZ it didn't sell in the US the game is doomed".

Personally I don't have great hopes for Farcry 2 it is just gonna be another unoptimised POS just like Assasins Creed is for the PC. I loved the original Farcry but I can see myself not even bothering with Farcry 2.

[Shankle]

You'll change your mind by the time it's released.

[theox2g7]

seriously, pc games have never stood a chance in comparison with console game sales in terms of speeds and sale rates, pc games sell at a much slower rate because hardware and price cuts are what drive sales not hype as more ppl can't afford rigs to play the game, everybody says sales are sluggish but they don't compare to the best selling pc games and how they sold poorly in their first month, pc and console are two completely different markets and it is not until recently that it seems like their merging so pc gaming is coming to light to some console gamers, besides looking at NPD US sales which doesn't include Europe and online distribution which form the bread and butter of sales, (Witcher sold less than 100k in US and but a million worldwide) is a very bad way of drawing conclusion on pc sales,
It's like looking at 360 sales in japan alone and saying the 360 is failing miserably in the console race, wait for worldwide sales figures and online estimates before calling foul on sales, also wait a couple of months along the line when the 9 series come out and the 8 series cards become affordable and look at crysis sales then before judging it has failed, Half life 2 sold 4 million within a 2 year time span and a good chunk of the sales were in the 2nd year 2005 when the game became very popular and playable on most systems, even half life 2 chugged on most average systems when it came out in 2004 but nobody complained then but everybody is screaming at crytek now,
It is true that pc games sales have been on the decline lately but there are other factors that ppl are forgetting, that online distribution is now very big in the pc market because it cuts production costs and saves gamers whole lot more as a digital copy is more reliable and faster to get as u can preload weeks before the game is out for retail, all these advantages are pushing pc gamers to online sales, and online sales are hard to come by so sales analysts just ignore them when reporting total sales but these figures are getting too large to be ignored, considering steam, a digital provider is a billion dollar company now

[mintaro]

im pretty sure if most computers were able to run it, than it would have pretty credible sales, unfortunatley for myself and alot of other people out there, our computers arent able to handle it

[Statix]

Of course they're not scared, they have console versions forthcoming. Lol.

[unicronic]

When will designers learn that bashing consoles and boasting about the PC like a mindless zealot is not good for business.

The PC as a platform allows developers a near barrierless technical plateau. However the problem is that the higher the levels of technical prowess on a game, the more of your potential audience you alienate due to insufficient specs.

Consoles are the option if you decide you really wanna make some money.

Think about it.

[Statix]

He wasn't bashing consoles or defending the delusion of PC profitability. Rather, he was actually saying that making an engine and a game on the PC platform can be profitable because they can eventually port them to consoles.

[Bastard 360]

PC gamming is sh!te, mouse and keyboard are for losers.

[fermcr]

GET A LIFE YOU SAD PERSON

BTW... what the hell are you using to write the stupid nonsense you just wrote... is a gamepad?

[Bastard 360]

Your an as+hole, gamespads are way better for gaming than mouse and keyboard.

[mboojigga]

Why the hell is this guy interviewing about PC games when he doesn't even understand WTF he is talking about?

[TheIneffableBob]

That was a horrible interview. But what else would you expect from MTV?